"Know who" and "know how"

Success in a new venture could be down to knowing how to do something and knowing who can help you. (Peterson and Rondstadt)

When you meet a new contact negotiation suggests that you look for either their pain and therefore sell to them, or a degree of mutual benefit. Either way the benefit may be led by profit.

When you are developing your network most people make judgements quite quickly on potential profit, and therefore the relationship.

Is this sensible?

Being creative is often associated with being "Arty" or even scientific as you perceive and create. Is being creative also about how you might be able to work with someone.

The reality of starting or developing a network is that you might not have a lot to trade with.

How do you get started?

I am developing some ideas on this at the moment. If you would like to complete a few questions, I would be very grateful.

http://tinyurl.com/8uuw5

Your views are most welcome

What are the barriers to creativity?

In this context a creative moment can be where a new idea has been born.

Often individuals may consider the "world" to have lots of new ideas, and that their idea is very similar to everyone else's - so why bother.

Many of us do logical system based tasks all day. Your brain may not be allowed to relax and consider new ideas.

You may have put yourself in a box, and not allowed yourself to think creatively. Have you given yourself permission?

You may respond very well to particular stimuli, but as yet you do not know what they are.

You may not have been exposed to creative techniques that help you to think creatively.

Despite these above points there are many many creative thoughts every day. The real barrier is having the courage, motivation and persistence to take your idea forward. This may involve overcoming many logical barriers as well as creative ones.

I am sure there are many more barriers - but I am looking for solutions - any ideas?!

Info-preneuring?

I learnt a new word today - Info-preneuring

I am not sure that it has added to my body of knowledge, but it may be a new way to describe the person and the process behind a good internet venture.

There seem to be courses to go on - most of which are directed at the process, not the person.

This is therefore my question - if entrepreneurs have to be a certain sort of person to suceed, then is the person any less relevant if the medium is the internet?

Can you predict the future?

It is fairly easy to research markets and work out what markets want today.

It is even easier to work out what markets wanted yesterday.

Can you work out what they want tomorrow?

In part analysing trends can give you some sort of answer if you produce something that is similar to something that is already selling.

If what you are developing is new you have to create both your market and your product.

Moving towards 2006 I am interested in products and services that will grow and be successful in the next year and beyond. It can be difficult to work out what they will be!

Some products or services will be refinements or adaptations of what is already around today. For instance we will have even better or cheaper satallite navigation tools by the end of next year.

Some products or services will be genuine "innovations". Some may even be at the prototype stage as we speak. For instance the mobile phone is becoming more powerful. Other than handling larger file sizes we haven't got very many new services to choose from our providers. What is possible?

Multinational competition - is it destruction for me?

If I had an innovative product that I was bringing to market. I have

• had first and second round funding, and a strategic alliance with a credible partner.
• engagement from corporates to my proposition, and close to having deals signed off
• an a mount of small deals already signed off

If I were in the IT sector and had just found out that Microsoft were about to launch a very similar product to mine. What are my options?

This is a summary of a real situation, but the competitor is not Microsoft.

If my pint were half full I would say it helps to define my market. I may also be more flexible, better customer service etc.

If my pint were half empty then I might work out that my customers already have products and services from this competitor that I can't supply. They have more muscle than me. The core product is the same. They will be around for a long time (I may not).

I have been creative in getting to market first, pioneered the development, and have bet my house on what I want to do - but is this relevant?

My point is that creative approaches do not happen in a vacuum. Keeping ahead of the competition is in itself a time limiting factor. You are also presented with a limited window in which to make what you need to happen happen.

Sooner or later you may get to the point where you should get out.

Key difficulties are therefore:

Identifying your market, and how long you will have to make an impact.
Knowing when destructive forces are bearing down on you.
How to make intelligent decisions when information is ambiguous

Thoughts?

What products or services have really changed our lives?

I often spend a few hours a day at one of my PC's

My operating system and all software are open source

My MP3 player takes up a little less space than my once treasured record collection

The PDA I use (Palm Treo 600) may be a little out of date - should I replace it?

In many ways these are obvious examples. As better ways of doing things appear we may adopt them.

Sometimes we don't

Betamax may have been better than VHS as a standard for video, but we the consumer liked the feel of VHS.

This suggests that the people or the person behind the shift in opinion matter as well.

How important is Steve Jobbs? Has he really changed our lives?